Current Location? Barcelona, Spain

Soundtrack til now? The band I'm mixing on tour Pierced Arrows, formerly DeadMoon

Today, May 5th 2008 is my anniversary for working the mixing board at the Ash St, 8 frikken years. Oi..Thou I can say I am extremely thankful to have a job in an industry that I love and the support of people like Trish and Mike that own the Ash St Saloon. Here's to many more years at the club.

Hi everyone,

Hanging out in the hotel in Barcelona today, just left France this morning. We're a bit outside the city and no disrespect to Spain but it's too frikken hot and crowded out there to venture forth. We're a bit outside the city's center and with no car access to travel back to the city, the air conditioned hotel room makes for a nice hiding place, plus I'm alone for the first time in like 4 weeks. Praise the Lord ;) Since I last updated we finished off Norway, went onto 3 major cities in Sweden. Then back down to Germany for another 5 dates, then onto Switzerland (yuck) and over to France then down to Spain. Our First show in Spain is...Wednesday? I think... in Madrid, then onto the west Coast of the country and all along to Northern border for several more shows. Then to Croatia and some country I cannot pronounce and then down to Greece.... then back to Germany (yuck) via Italy and back to Holland to end the tour (yay!) that Yay is for Holland cause it rocked the most so far.

Sweden was cool... there is a Db limit for how loud bands can play at concert, which was not cool when you are mixing a rock-n-roll band like I am. I guess they fear for the publics hearing loss, isn't that what ear plugs are for? And choice to wear such products? I hear Sweden used to be the most Liberal country, not anymore. If you smoke in a hotel room there you get a $250 fine... needless to say, I smoked outside. We were in Gothenburg (don't call it goatburg, they get mad), Lund and Stockholm. Stockholm was by far the best city to visit, thou it was at the top of the country and was our last show in Sweden, we had to drive all the way down to Germany...over 10 hours and 3 countries later we were in Lubeck Germany. Mind you we had to cross a 15 mile bridge and go thru a 10 mile underwater tunnel. Travel over here is.....well....different.

Germany..let's see... was...fine and dandy, I'm just over it. Been thru there twice now for a bulk of the tour date and I wanna eat so GOOD food, thank God for France ;) The best city we've been to in Germany so far was Tubigen, below Stuttgard, GR and right above Switzerland. It was Bovarian country. Basically how you would envision Germany to be was what this little town looked like, very quaint and old. I bought an honest to goodness beer stein here... totally worht the $50 it cost...32 Euro ;) the exchange rate on USD sucks ass.

We played one show in Switzerland (thank God) in Winterthur. Which if you look up on the web, looks like a quaint little rolling hills town. I can tell you first hand it's a shit hole. They too had a Db limit for bands.. which means how loud is can be... not even able to get it loud enough to rock. Thou I did my best to cross that limit a billion times during the set ':0. No one spoke English at all and no one had fuckin Ice cubes anywhere. I love ice and am sorely missing them these days. I will say that the side of Switzerland that borders France is much much nicer and prettier then the part that touches Germany. Depending on what part of SW you are in is to what language they speak, very very confusing.

France...welll the only reason we were in France was to get to Spain, sort of a stop over country and we only drove thru a small section of it. But if you know my last name you know I'm French by decent and was stoked to be there regardless of the reason. We stayed in a cute little town called Valence on the Eastern border of the country and ate some awesome food, which was deserved after all the crappy food in germany. Woke up early this morning and drove the rest of the Eastern border to Spain.

Spain... Barcelona is FUCKIN HUGE and I'm told where we are headed, Madrid, makes Barcelona look tiny. We drove thru it on about 16 freeways to get thru to the outskirts where we are now. Saw LOTS of awesome old building and Castles and such and tons of Graffity everywhere (thou most all countries have it). We play Madrid in I believe 2 days from now, then onto the coast on the west side at a club that is ON the water, look out the door and see the ocean I am told.

4 weeks of touring down, 3 weeks to go and I'm ready for my creature comforts back home! I miss Ice cubes, the English language, and clean clothes. Just to name a few. Am I glad I came? Yes, now I know where I don't wanna go again ;) Honestly the landscape of everywhere we've been so far looks like a mix of California and the Pacific Northwest and I've driven from the top of Europe to the frikken bottom. In the states if you drive from Oregon to Nevada you see different landscape the whole way, in fact most every state in the US holds a different natural wonder and landscape. This place is getting redundant and makes me miss home. If you knocked me out and I woke up in Germany I would l think I was in Portland...except I can't read the signage. Sorry if I sound bitchy but after 4 weeks in the van with the same 4 people you aren't full of sunshine anymore. 

Please remember to continue to support the Ash St, since it is my home away from home I want it to still be there when I get back! Leaving an 18 hour a day work load was a relief but I'm surely ready to come back to that now after hours on end in a tiny little van with stinky cheese being eatten in the back seat!

Ciao!

Heather